Originally Posted by
SSlow
I'm no industry expert, but I don't think the F9 merger is in the cards.
They are solidly a ULCC. No premium seating options, no wifi, wait 20 minutes for a "gate" which may or may not be airstairs.
NK has invested a lot on premium options and trying to improve the overall pax experience. Maybe it's pure luck but in FLL my gate is usually open, rampers are in place, and a gate agent is ready to connect the jetbridge. This place is unrecognizable from 4 years ago.
This is happening because of the massive decrease in block hours with the same amount of gates at our disposal in FLL. Don’t kid yourself, if we were running full tilt you’d be waiting plenty and we’d be losing even more money. This place has no path forward to profitability without a merger. The bankruptcy did nothing to improve our financial position other than buying time and getting the shareholders out of the way.
It’s merger or death and the clock is ticking. Two clocks actually. One is the cash burn which can get some time added if they sell some airplanes and the other is the debt they kicked down the road a few years which is why we declared bankruptcy in the first place. We aren’t magically going to have $2 billion in a couple years and won’t be credit worthy to get it refinanced outside of bankruptcy.
The legacies have too much power now. You cannot be successful without scale. This is a pump and dump scheme right now. Lipstick on a pig.